Morpheus

by Charnofsky, Stan;

  “Yes, yes, I agree.” Mother was not defeated, never defeated, but I caught a clear sense that she was chastised and would let well enough alone.

  The dinner ended with a chocolate mousse that Abby praised shamelessly—which, I think, mollified Mother somewhat.

  I observed Abby taking in the ambience of Mother’s house and wondered what she made of it: the crystal chandelier hovering over our dinner table, a dark mahogany breakfront with glazed glass panes through which elegant China bowls and trays could be seen, a tablecloth of spun rayon, white, with gold embellishments sewn in, Beethoven’s “Leonora Overture” sounding over invisible speakers, Mother’s rich couture and carefully coiffed tresses—all the hallmark of this paradoxical woman, so attentive to me, so attentive to herself.

  When we were about to leave—I would drive Abby home—the repartee at the door summed up the evening.

  “Goodbye, my dear. It was delightful meeting you. I do hope your life proves productive and satisfying.”

  “Thank you, Marilyn. It was a scrumptious dinner, and a pleasure to learn a little about Clare’s mother.”

  On the way, in my car, Abby smiled contradictorily and said, “Your mother is a bitch.”

  A rush of satisfaction absorbed me, and a tiny touch of irritation. Yes, someone I cared about recognized dear old Mom’s abrasive style, and yet she was my mother, the closest person to me in the world, and I did not want to present a disloyal front.

  All I said was, “You got it. She is the alpha wolf protecting her cub.”

  That night, my dream about a ferocious dog with giant teeth coming at me resurfaced. I awoke in a sweat and, this time in my adulthood, I did not want, nor was there, a reassuring mother to comfort me.

  SIX

  I think my mother presumed I would grow tired of Abby, since she was a layer below us financially and educationally. Mom was in for a surprise, because she didn’t want to entertain the fact that Abby was a rare person—barely making it economically but with an insatiable hunger to understand the world around her.

  I was in awe of her street wisdom, her practical bent, along with a massive, unwavering inquisitiveness: if I talked sports, she would ask fifty questions until she was satisfied she had taken in my message; if I repeated some professorial insight from my classes, she would ponder it for a moment and, often as not, raise a piercing issue about its veracity. She almost never bought anything at face value, would dissect an idea and offer a novel alternative.

  How could I not have been pulled in by her?

  And yet, all the time, there was the hint of distress just below the surface. On occasion, without any observable provocation, she would turn inward, an implosive stewing, invariably followed by an explosive eruption that seemed, as far as I could tell, to clear the air. It was not that she was unreliable: most of the time I felt comfortable and safe around her. The blow-ups seemed almost mandatory, a way to replenish her emotional calm and regain a needed equilibrium.

  In my dilemma about her volatility, I consulted psychology books, intent on finding a name for––well, I could only call it––her condition.

  The DSM, which stood for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, noted many “disorders,” which touched on the kind of behavior I saw in Abby, but mostly my research came up with one diagnosis after another, which seemed to describe me. I was high and low, cited in the Manual as bipolar. I was fearful of confrontation, possibly a general anxiety disorder. I had habits that commanded me, like obsessive-compulsive behavior, I was a momma’s boy, maybe some sort of Oedipal complex. I had nightmares, a form of sleep disorder.

  A professor at college told me that anyone studying abnormal psychology sees himself in the various conditions and that it was nothing to concern myself about, since most of the symptoms I saw were minor and not full-blown. Everyone, he said, has touches of all the disorders, meaning we are all neurotic in one form or another.

  None of that helped me understand Abby’s unpredictable moods.

  A week later, she told me she had a new dream.

  “My mother was cozying up to my father, and he, so typical of him, was bullying her: some aspect of what she was doing was wrong, she was messing with him, her affection was phony, she didn’t turn him on any more, she was nothing but a slut! He ended his verbal abuse with a slap on the side of the head, and—here’s where it becomes bizarre—when my mother fell onto the couch, she turned, and her face was your mother’s face!”

  “God, Abby, that is a blast! Where did that come from?”

  “Damned if I know. A little hostility there, I’d say.”

  “Sure, but it was your father who was beating up on my mother.”

  “I dream of his anger a lot. He was a frustrated man. Still is. How Marilyn got into the picture—well, that’s how dreams are, eerie, inexplicable.”

  “My mother would die before she’d take treatment like that from a man. I’m sure it’s one reason she and my father broke up, though she’s never told me specifics. He was distant and cool toward her I knew that, and probably had affairs—but I didn’t know that. As for why he wanted out, I can only guess that he had enough domination and wanted to break free and fly away.”

  She smiled at me and said softly, “Like you. And some day you will.”

  It was intermission time at our writers’ group lecture, and we were standing by a graceful fountain in the lobby of the Guild’s building. A winged horse sculpted on a sturdy aluminum pedestal hovered over an array of greened metallic leaves and fronds, through which a hidden spigot spouted a water spray, tinted by a blue spotlight. It could have been garish but somehow avoided that, and came across as charming and unusual.

  I laughed at her insight, and said, “I need to grow wings.”

  Then the unthinkable happened: my mother met a man and told me she was getting married. His name was Barry Klotz, and he wore a huge Star of David on his chest. I wasn’t sure he was even Jewish, but he seemed to love to display his—no pun intended—jewelry.

  Aside from his gaudy bent he seemed pompous to me, and woefully self-centered. It is said that narcissists are attracted to other narcissists, but that, after a time, they spark, neither giving in to the other’s egotism. And most troubling for me was the fact that he seemed devious. Mother was controlling and overbearing, but usually I could believe her. Barry told tale after tale of his exploits: a hero in one of our wars, a daytime television personality fifteen years back, a one-time icon (his ten minutes of fame, he said), when he tripped-up a purse snatcher and held him for the police.

  He was not a tall man but burly, with an ample belly and thick arms. To me he looked as if he had done some wrestling in his early years, but perhaps that wasn’t glamorous enough for him to brag about.

  What surprised me most was Mother allowing a new man into her very private life. In one sense I realized it could take her focus off me, which would be admirable, but in reality I wasn’t sure that would happen; instead, it might give her an ally in her relentless effort to shape me.

  Since I recognized the man’s deceitful style, I imagined it would take Mother a few months to grow tired of him, the way she presumed I would with Abby. But in the meantime I would have to tolerate being exposed to his hyperbolic manner.

  After I met Barry, I had a confusing dream about a woman (my mother?) whose face was hidden, shoving a man, also unrecognizable (me?), into the street, in front of a car. That one really terrified me, and I walked around for a few days shaken and absurdly cautious.

  I mentioned compulsivity as part of my psychology, and at the time, for some reason, I began to exaggerate that behavior. I would count out exactly forty-four steps from my car to the curb when heading to my classroom. If it seemed to be taking less, I would take smaller steps; if it seemed to need less, I would lengthen my stride. Heavy on oral desires, I would bite down on my tongue with my left side molars—always the left side, never the right. When taking my twelve vitamin pills in the morning, I had to pair a small pill with a
large one, never two large or two small, before popping each two into my mouth.

  Nobody noticed any of this except me, but it bothered me that I was so programmed.

  Abby’s intermittent instability, Mother’s monumental life-change with the entry of the phony Barry Klotz, and my own obsessions all conspired to add to my tenuous life journey—and, annoyingly, expand my nocturnal harassment.

  SEVEN

  Abby had a hard time with organized religion. Her family started out Catholic, true believers in their own way, though both mother and father broke the sacraments regularly without confession. By the time she reached her adolescence, Abby had developed disdain for the church, any church, and pronounced herself an atheist. Contrary to the beliefs in some redneck sections of the country, she was not a pagan, did not flout the values of the culture, was not a communist (though she did have socialistic leanings when it came to distribution of wealth), and did not equate her godlessness with moral depravity.

  None of it was an issue for me, because in my family we were nothing; by that I mean we had no sort of religious devotion, but did not paste on a label of any kind. I never heard Mom or Dad say atheist or even agnostic. They just lived their lives without a Sunday (or Saturday) meeting. I liked that, since I could sleep in on weekends and play ball without feeling I was breaking some rule.

  When Mom got married, she made it clear to Barry that she wanted a judge to do the ceremony, not a cleric. Abby and I were there. It was a dull and uninspiring ceremony, the principals eschewing any personal statement to the other, content to let his honor set the agenda. I don’t mean it was somber, or lacked an element of celebration: mother had arranged a marvelous feast at her house for some thirty people, catered by a local deli, her large dining room table enhanced by two leaves, the food—which included meats and European cheeses, caviar, tiny shrimp in red sauce, platters of chocolate cookies and rich lemony sweets––displayed gloriously in a most aesthetic design. I praised the deli guy as he was leaving and he only smiled: a job for him.

  Two servers were hired to walk around with trays of hors d’oeuvre and flutes of champagne.

  I could tell that Abby was put off by the flamboyance of it all, her home life devoid of such displays. She joined in, however, without a fuss, and seemed to relish the feast if not the festival.

  The highlight—or low-light if one is inclined to see it that way—was when Mother proposed a toast to her changing life.

  “Lift your glasses,” she said with an air of pomp, “to honor Barry and Marilyn, a new tandem in the universe, a blending of two diverse lives into one mold, one unified perspective on our daily pursuits, a partnership of like minds and connected hearts.”

  Mother, I knew, had a refined capacity to use language that pulled and tugged at the emotions; what I had learned, much earlier, was to pay attention to her actions, not her words. The words I had just heard, to my trained ears, meant: This guy, Barry, is hooking up with me, he’ll fit in nicely, I’ll shape him to my purposes, I’ll run the show.

  There were shouts and the high clink of connecting glasses, followed by Barry stepping forward.

  With raised flute, he said, his face fixed with what I read as a synthetic smile, “To my bride, my new companion, the good fortune of my middle-age, the yin to my yang, a jewel, a treasure, a magical find beyond words.” He stopped, grinned even more, and said, “So, no more words!”

  Abby tilted her head and offered me a sly smile; she seemed to catch the lay of the land, comprehend the hidden agenda. I smiled back; I loved that, there was something intimate about it, mutuality between us, a meeting of eyes across a crowded room, a similar understanding going down.

  As I expected, my father and his wife had not been invited to the wedding or the reception, but the two daughters had, likely as a concession to their friendship with me. The older one, almost seventeen, who was supposed to have a fixation on me, was named Stephanie and everyone called her Stevie for short. The younger was Jeri—that was it, her full name—and, to be frank, I liked her more; she was honest to a fault, intuitive, had a curiosity like Abby, and a shimmering smile with a dimple in her left cheek. Oh, Stevie was fine, too, only she was somewhat more devious and, as I saw it, more needy.

  I knew that my connection with Abby was a bother to Stevie, could see that she watched our interactions with a sour look, as if our closeness was some kind of insult. Jeri was forthcoming, friendly, filled with interest about Abby, asking questions, wanting to know about her life. Abby appreciated her as well, the two of them gabbing away with a mutual attraction.

  “I like to write, too,” I heard Jeri say. “In school, my lit teacher says I have a wild imagination. My stories have oomph and unpredictability.”

  Abby replied, “You have a huge head start. Most writers can learn the business, but that doesn’t give them the flair needed to be an original. Copycats are plentiful, but originals are hard to find.”

  “I like that!” Jeri giggled. “I’ll tell my teacher that a real writer called me an original.”

  “I wouldn’t classify me as a ‘real’ writer, though I am proud of my nascent ideas and my products so far, meager as they may be.”

  “She’s a super writer,” I interjected. The few pieces of Abby’s I had read revealed a keen feel for the human side, never stodgy, not at all formal, a great sense of empathy for character.

  “He likes me,” Abby said. “I take him with me wherever I go so I can be put up on a pedestal. Beats bragging about myself.”

  “She’s modest too,” I said. “Don’t be surprised if in the next year or two you see her name on the jacket of a best seller.”

  “My teacher has had short stories published, and one book about movie stars, nonfiction. She’s a great lecturer, and she inspires me.”

  “Hold on to her,” Abby said, “Inspirational teachers are over-the-top and hard to find.”

  Stevie sauntered over to our little trio, smiling and interrupting. “Something must be really cool here for you guys to be so … conspiratorial.”

  “We’re not,” I answered. “We are gabbing away about the tools of the trade—the writing trade, that is.”

  “Abby’s a writer,” Jeri said. “She’s a creative person, like great Uncle Ted.”

  Their great uncle on their father’s side had been the brilliant science fiction and fantasy writer, Theodore Sturgeon, who passed some fifteen years earlier. He was often cited by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury as the “best of us all” when it came to inventiveness. Besides that, he was a social commentator, his novels and stories penetrating indictments of cultural inequities and political corruption.

  “Uncle Ted was the most famous person in our family,” Stevie said. “My father likes to brag about him.”

  “I hope I have some of his genes,” Jeri put in.

  “You do,” Stevie taunted, “in your looks. You look just like him, curly hair and all.”

  “I do not. I’m a girl.”

  “Sure you do. I look more like Mom’s side of the family, and you look like Dad’s.”

  “No need to argue over that,” I counseled. “Both of you are beautiful, so who cares what combinations you got from what ancestors?”

  Jeri’s more round face was indeed radiant, with her appealing smile and whimsical dimple. Stevie had a longer face with a more prominent chin and high cheekbones. Both girls had cerulean-blue eyes that glistened, a morning sky at the start of a crystal clear day. Each, in her unique way, was sure to become, was already, a stunning young woman.

  My compliment brought forth typical responses: Jeri giggled, and Stevie blushed, blinked her eyes rapidly, and gave me an enormous grin.

  None of the exchange was lost on Abby, who was amused and contemplative about it all. “I will anticipate keeping up with your successes, both of you. Clare will have to keep me posted on all your doings.”

  Just then, the newest member of our extended family approached. Barry Klotz, appearing flushed and sweaty, entered our small
group with, “Did you like the ceremony? What did you think of the toasts? Quite a pair, Marilyn and me! Nothing can get in our way. We are going to take over the world!”

  “Grandiose,” Abby whispered to me, too softly for anyone to hear.

  “I hope with compassion,” I said.

  “Just an expression. What a team we’ll be!”

  I thought he would make a great character in a novel about disingenuousness: the way he posed questions and never waited for an answer but let them hang without resolution. One could have a field day with his posturing, his airs, that vulgar self-centeredness.

  “Hope you’ll be happy,” Abby said, though when I looked at her I could see a storm brewing.

  Something about Barry was igniting Abby’s volatile crucible, a crucible like the one at the bottom of a furnace where molten metal is deposited. I began to worry that she could go off, so I turned to her and said rather softly, “Think maybe we ought to get going?”

  She appreciated my concern, I could tell, and said, “I’ll say goodbye to your mother.”

  “Don’t be strangers,” Barry bellowed. “Welcome at our house any time.”

  Eerie how quickly possessions change. My house, where my mother and I lived for years, was now this man’s house, and he was generously offering to allow me to visit.

  “Thanks,” I said, with a phony smile of my own, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  As we left my now forfeited family home, Abby said, “That man triggers my deepest hostility. Though they don’t look at all alike, I think his superior attitude catapults me right back to my father’s manner. The big difference, and I’ll bet my life on it, is that this jerko won’t be able to push your mother around. He’s in for a real shock.”

  “It doesn’t make me happy,” I concluded, “that Mother has recruited a new man to dominate. It’s his problem, but I do hope she’ll focus on him now and leave me alone.”